Beauty (& The Beast) | The Photo Gallery

For this week’s ‘The Photo Gallery’ theme of ‘Beauty’ I stepped out in the sunshine before the storm with my daughters.

I love to watch the weather change and Wellington has plenty of great vantage points (and rapidly changing weather!). Below is a storm cloud, sitting over the north of the South Island – before it made its way over the Cook Strait to Wellington and the North Island. I took this photograph from the top of Brooklyn hill, where the first wind turbine in New Zealand was placed nearly twenty years ago. In the distance you can see more wind turbines – a sign of people’s mark on the landscape – trying to work with the elements to power our technological world.

There’s also, to the right of the photograph, the curving edge of a fence – a very special fence – which marks New Zealand’s first mainland, predator free area for native wildlife – Zealandia. It’s a small token from the current generation to the children of the future – to turn back the tide on the destruction of our ignorant past. The area is cleared of introduced predators and the fence keeps them out. Inside the fence boundary is a wonderful sanctuary for New Zealand’s native wildlife – which mostly consists of birds, reptiles and amphibians.

Outside of the fence, in the sunshine before the storm, my children spent an hour soaking up the Vitamin D and turning their chesty coughs and runny noses to the wind at Princess Bay.

Dressed in layers for a Wellington spring, they climbed and played free and happy.

Focusing on nothing other than being there, in the moment, balancing in the icy breath of air travelling up from Antarctica.

Wearing gumboots, jandals or going barefoot – Kiwi children through and through.

Aware of the storm approaching from the south…

Snaking in on Wellington harbour, like a Taniwha…

Beauty and the Beast living side by side… a landscape with ever changing weather and seasons, like the rich tapestry of life with all its ups and downs.